Forget Black Rod banging at the Commons entrance and the Earl Marshal’s impressive White Wand, (quiet at the back, this is serious constitutional business). The real tradition and flummery of the Queen’s speech lay in its adherence to the ancient laws of the pre-election politics.
We had the quinquennial genuflection to the Daily Mail, represented by the plastic bags (gift to sketchwriters) bill.
There was the ceremonial laying of the traps and the drawing of the dividing lines, with the Charter of Budget Responsibility and the red tape (dare to oppose this) bill.
There was the delicately choreographed stately quadrille of internal differences, always a particular joy, with free school meals pirouetting with fracking, ending slavery gliding gently alongside capping benefits.
There was the nod to the red tops, with the pubs (we like them too) bill.
Most of all, the highlight of every Queen’s speech, we saw the election slogan regnant and elliptical. Her Majesty does not stoop to party politics, yet the speech will be on the news, so as proof of Britain’s living system of checks and balances, convention dictates words from the government of the day’s election slogan are inscribed at random by the prime minister’s college of advisers throughout the speech.
From this, we can deduce that all elections in British history have been won by parties who wish us to have a Long Term Economic Plan For Hard Working Families Who Play By The Rules And Deserve To Go Forward Together In The National Interest.
I confess, though, that I wondered if the pageboy did not faint in vain.
I am a blank-faced modernist, a revolutionary against the old ways. Her Majesty did not need to observe the traditions. All she had to do was tell us the simple truth: ‘This year, my prime minister will try to win an election. Toodle-pip’.
That is what it amounted to. No more, no less. That was the tragedy of the Queen’s speech. For all the government talks of challenges and reforms, it thinks the way to win the election is by carrying on pretty much exactly as it was, which is why all we got was flummery and political tradition.
In a way this is comforting. If this government were to recognise that the most dangerous thing it could do is confound our expectations of it, to actually change Britain for Hard Working Families with a Long Term Economic Plan rather than act as if saying the words made the policy reality, then perhaps it would persuade more than its own existing supporters of its value.
But then, that is hardly tradition, is it?
———————————
Hopi Sen is a Labour blogger who writes here, is a contributing editor to Progress, and writes a fortnightly column for ProgressOnline here